(0:16) You can't do this just by shoving 30, 35 people in a class, and just teaching to some test.
Seriously?! The Obama administration - which includes the Racin' To The Top maniac Arne Duncan - is going to fault Mitt Romney for pushing education policies that "just teach to some test"?!
The Arne Duncan who pushes what Diane Ravitch calls the "junk science" of test-based teacher evaluation? The Arne Duncan who is using RTTT as a bribe to force states into a regime of test-based teacher evaluation, even though he admits the tests aren't good enough to do the job? The Arne Duncan who is proud to have spent $350 million on test development instead of putting it into the classroom?
I say this as a loyal Democrat and supporter of Barack Obama, but also as someone who has decided it's time to start speaking plainly about education: this ad is telling a lie about Obama's education policies.
No one has done more to strengthen the standardized testing culture that is stifling our public schools than Barack Obama. When you force schools to make high-stakes decisions based on bubble tests, you all but guarantee that the curriculum will focus on those tests. It's absolute nonsense for Obama to infer that he stands against this policy.
And I'd like point out yet again that the Obamas, by sending their own daughters to Sidwell Friends, have decided not to expose their children to the sort of narrow education that follows from an emphasis on bubble tests. It's probably the only issue where I find the President to be a total hypocrite.
Look, I'm not throwing my vote away on a third party candidate. I can't stand Romney for a variety of reasons, and his education polices are worse than Obama's (more on that later).
But crap like this makes it that much harder for me to pull the Democratic lever in November, let alone write a check or do some canvassing (which I did enthusiastically in the last election). Obama shouldn't get to walk away from the havoc he is wreaking on our schools; it annoys me to no end that he will.
On education, can you find much of a difference? I can't.